Farewell my friends

I'm vacation bound, with no or extremely limited web access. Have a nice week!

Ample warning

Last night I put 15.56 gallons of gas in my car. The tank holds 16 gallons. The question I have is this: at what point, exactly, did my fuel light plan to go on to alert me to a lack of petrol? I know it works, too, because it definitely came on last time I needed gas TWO DAYS AGO (OK, fine, I only put in a third of a tank then...and then drove a lot...but, still.)

My baby looks like Jackie O.

And I look like Shakira, Jamie Lynn Spears AND Christina Aguilera (as well as Marcia Cross, Drew Berrymore and Ashley Judd...I'm not sure how much I trust this website...).

Who do you look like?

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php

Why I should be fired

(Not because I'm blogging from work.)

Because I say things like this: (in reference to a person who claims to have been wronged by one of our clients)

Let me get this straight. Not only is this guy part black, part white and part Native American, but he's also part Asian and a practicing Jew? Are we sure he's not also on the endangered species list?

Maybe I should be in sensitivity training with Ozzie Guillen.

If I could turn back time...

I wish I had gone to this university: http://www.liberty.edu/studentaffairs/index.cfm?PID=1378

Those are some good rules and regs right there.

Pet Peeve

It always makes me mad when people driving company vehicles with the company name and phone number plastered all over drive like complete assholes. I'm always tempted to call the number and turn them in, but then I think: What if the number on the vehicle is the cell phone number of the driver? And what if he then tries to run me off the road?

What a ripoff.

I just went to Panera for lunch. I had a bowl of french onion soup and a lemonade. The grand total came to $7. For soup and lemonade. That kind of makes me sick. I mean, why does any restaurant that is able to promote their food as being halfway healthy get to charge up the ass for it? I don't think I could possibly order $7 worth of McDonald's food for myself and eat it in one sitting. If I went to Portillo's, I could get a beef and cheddar croissant with french fries and a coke for around $7, and I wouldn't be able to finish it. And I can think of a bunch of other crappy food that would be cheap and abundant too. But $7 for soup and lemonade (which barely made me full and, by the way, probably wasn't especially healthy either)?!? What is this world coming to? No wonder so many people are so fat. It's just easier and cheaper that way.

Africa Hot in Here

Happy Monday, everybody! Hey--guess what! The AC in my office building is not functioning! And guess what else! It's 93 degrees outside! Oh, but it feels like 103. Actually, I don't find that to be very accurate. I was just outside at lunchtime, and it definitely feels hotter inside the building that outside. Please, oh please, let us go home. Nothing is getting accomplished, save for lots and lots of complaining and sweating. The powers that be (and get to say "Go home") still have hope that the AC units will be restored today (actually, one unit is working--two are not, but it is either not enough to notice, or it doesn't affect our part of the building). Seriously, though, it's after 1 pm. There's no way that this building could possibly cool down by 5, even if they get both broken units up and running. It's just *that* hot in here. Africa hot, as a friend used to say. Or, maybe that should be, "As a former friend says." Who knows. Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that I'm miserable. Although, in an act of kindness, the partners did send the clerk to 7-11 this morning, and he came back with Slurpees for everyone, as well as a variety of Arizona canned teas and lemonades. And that did help, for as long as the slurpee lasted. OK....back to the grindstone. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an early release. But I'm not holding my breath, because I'd surely pass out.

Items of interest.

1. Weezer announced their breakup.

2. Today at lunch, I watched a bus boy wipe down a table by pushing the large chunks of crumbs and a big blob of some kind of sauce-looking thing off the table and directly onto the seat of the booth--except some of that stuff just stuck right to the edge of the table. And then he didn't wipe down the seats or the table edge. And then people sat there.

3. I need a pair of pants that are comfortable. I mean, pants that are appropriate to wear to work on casual Friday (i.e. no pajama pants). Everybody on earth should have access to comfortable pants, but I don't. I just simply can't find a single damn pair of pants in any store that work for me. It's just not fair.

4. I had half of a plain doughnut with chocolate frosting today for breakfast. (One of the Boss-men brings in breakfast treats every Friday.) That made me very happy! I wonder if it was from Spunky Dunkers? I doubt it, but that would make me extra happy!

5. I am not looking forward to the next 5 days of forecast 90+ degree temperatures!

6. I bought these shoes: (In a different color)

I have only worn them a handful of times and they are already gross and stinky. As such, I cannot recommend them to anyone, despite their cuteness. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

7. Have a nice weekend!

I'b dyeeg.

Sometime around the 25th of June, I came down with a cold. I caught it from Eric who caught it from some daycare host monkey. And guess what, as we rapidly approach the beginning of the 13th of July, I still have the damn cold. Only, over the past few days it decided to stop getting better each and every day and, in fact, has taken a sharp turn for the worse. So I finally went to a doctor tonight. He visited with me for all of 12 seconds and presrcibed me amoxicillin, which he hoped would thwart the plans of the tonsils that are staging a coups against the rest of my body. We'll see. But, in the meantime, it huhts when I swawwo. :(

I really do have things I need to blog about, but right now I'm too busy not letting my head explode. And also, working. Yes, that's right folks, I'd like to write interesting things, but I'm too busy doing my part to make the law happen correctly. But mostly, it's the part about the potentially exploding head that has me scared into blogging submission.

Please, please send your get well vibes this way. I'm pitiful and whiney and my husband is getting sick of me.

Coming out of the closet

Ya know, all my life, I've never really paid much nevermind to NASCAR. As far as I can remember, my parents have always been rather ambivilant about racing, but somewhere along the way, I decided that NASCAR was a sport for the rednecks to enjoy. Once, when I was in college, my friend Jessica begged me to go to this townie bar with her for one of her journalism projects. We were going there so that she could write a story about the band that was playing, but it turned out to be a NASCAR bar. It just so happened to be the same weekend that Dale Earnhardt died. I barely recognized the name. Anyway, at one point, a member of the band asked for a moment of silence in his honor. Thing was, I was chatting with Jessica and just plain didn't hear him request the moment of silence. It was one of those things where one minute the bar was loud and booming and the next minute you could hear a pin drop...oh, and me talking. I had no idea what was going on, but it's never good to be the only one talking, so I shut up. After a few more seconds of silence, the band member said, "Thank you. It means a lot to me. He was a personal hero of mine, but I know not everyone here's a racing fan," and then looked pointedly at me. And then everyone else looked at me too. You know the pace picante sauce commercials? That was the moment that the lead singer of the band announced that my salsa was made in New York City.

Anyway, last weekend, Chris had ESPN on, and a NASCAR race happened to come on. We decided to leave it on so that Eric could see the race cars. But. It became...sort of...addicting! I put Eric down for his nap and came back to watch some more. The race part I can take or leave, but have you ever watched a pit crew in action? Damn--it's pretty cool! It's like someone pushed the fast forward button on these people. I imagine that if the TV audience could hear them talking, they would sound like chimpmunks. Also, I happened to notice that some of those race car drivers are pretty damn good looking! That alone is worth the price of admission!

So, it's like this. I'm not rushing out to by NASCAR gear, but I am admitting it here for all the internets and my 5 readers to see: NASCAR ain't so bad.

On changing the roll of toilet paper.

As far as partying goes, I suppose I was a bit of a late bloomer. My friends and I were really tame in high school. I wouldn't say we were big dorks or anything, but we definitely were not in the partying/drinking crowd. When it came time for college, several of us went to the same large, nameless state university. (Go Illini! Oops.) I still remember our first few weeks there like they were yesterday. They went something like this: "Hey 17-year-old girls, want to come to a frat party?" Us: "Yeah, totally!" (trying to pretend like we're so cool and we do this stuff all the time). Then we would go to the party and 6 of us would be terrified and trying to pretend like we knew what we were doing. We would stand around in a circle and whisper about whether or not we should get beer/whatever mixed drink of dubious nature was coming out of the gigantic gatorade cooler. Finally, two or three of us would grow balls and go get a cup of some frosty adult beverage. Note: that's a cup. As in one. TOTAL. And then six of us would drink from it and try not to make the beer face after every sip.

After a couple months, though, we started to get the hang of things. I don't remember when, exactly, I first got drunk, but I do remember everything else. My friend Adam, who was a year older, lived in a house on campus with several other guys. They had a house party one weekend, and I went with my then boyfriend Brian and my friend Jessica. I was drinking some kind of lemonade and everclear mixture which was not quite as offensive to the palate as the Natural Light of the frat party scene. After a cup or two, I started feeling VERY outgoing and happy. I couldn't stop smiling and laughing. Or peeing. The first time I got in line for the bathroom, a couple of British girls came up behind me and asked, "Is this the queue for the loo?" which, of course, at the time was the cutest, most hysterical thing ever said to me. Also note: as this was my first time drunk, I had not yet experienced the sensation of "breaking the seal."

On my next trip to the bathroom, I was in line with several guys. I happened to strike up a conversation with the bloke standing behind me, in which I revealed that it was my first time drunk. He asked how it felt, to which I replied, "I think I'm cute when I'm drunk! Do you think I'm cute when I'm drunk?" He explained that he had never seen me sober, but I did appear to be pretty cute when I was drunk. We continued chatting about nonsense until it was my turn. When I came out of the bathroom, he grabbed my arm before entering and told me that he and his friends were sitting in the front room of the house and I should definitely come find him. I asked if it was OK if I brought my boyfriend. I'm like that. Flirt, flirt, flirt and then drop the bomb.

So, on a high of having some random college guy telling me I was cute and that I should come find him later, I decided that it was the appropriate time to start asking everyone at the party if they thought I was cute when I was drunk. Apparently I was cute to a point, and then I just became annoying. Yeah. I can see that.

As the night wore on and I continued to get...uh, cuter and cuter, I began using the bathroom more and more frequently. On one of my trips to the bathroom, I noticed just before doing my business that there was no more toilet paper on the roll. I looked under the sink. None there. I looked in the medicine cabinet. None there. Then I looked on the shelf on the wall, and there was one lonely roll. Except. Keep in mind that I was in a house that was inhabited by men. Mostly of the tall variety. And I'm 5'5". And this shelf was mounted at about 6'2". And the roll of toilet paper was the only thing up there, and it was all the way at the back of the shelf. So I jumped and I pawed at the toilet paper over and over until I eventually got the damn thing to roll off the shelf. And I was drunk. For the first time ever. And did I mention that I was also cute?

So, I came out of the bathroom and I hunted down my friends. And I told them with a grand sense of accomplishment, "I changed the roll of toilet paper!" Except I didn't explain the part about the shelf being really high and me risking life and limb to reach it. Not that it would have mattered, probably. I mean, I was boasting about changing the roll of toilet paper for christ's sake. Of course I have been teased mercilessly about this since. I've kind of tried to accept it as my super power--the ability to change the roll of toilet paper while drunk. Now I do it whenever I can at parties. And people take pictures of it, as seen in my profile picture. It's a tough task, but someone has to do it.

Random thoughts on this lovely Wednesday morning

Hell0 All.

My how I've missed you.

You know? This working full time thing is really for the birds. I'd much rather be basking in the sunshine. And still getting paid. Yeah. Perhaps I should look into independent wealth. It could be for me. Really.

One thing that's bad about the 4th being on Tuesday is that today feels like Monday all over again. Except it's humpday. Happy Humpday.

On Sunday, my parents took Eric on a little trip up to Galena and Chris and I had the day off. Chris won "tickets" to a concert. A local radio station (the one I interned for!), does these "Live from Studio X" shows where they take a band that is in town for a concert and they have them do a small, private concert for a limited number of people at an undisclosed location. So, we went to see Los Lonely Boys. They were really good, but it was a very short concert--it was being recorded for a radio show that will air at a later date. After that, we watched the Cubs kick the White Sox ass. Well, I don't know if you can really call it an ass-kicking when both teams scored in the double digits. But the Cubs won nonetheless. Finally. It could be the last time this season. Oops. I didn't say that.

I want to go on vacation. In three an a half more weeks, we're going to Michigan. I want to go right now.

Why is it that people who work as cashiers often act as if the value of the coupon you are presenting to them is coming directly out of their pocket? It drives me nuts. I mean, I occasionally use coupons, but whenever I do, I'm always hassled about it. Do I look like I'm trying to rip off the company? I'm sorry that my $1 off diapers coupon offends you so, but get over it. That's all I have to say about that.

Now I'm hungry. Thank god it's lunch time.